Coffee-table tomes for rock 'n' roll aficionados

By Patrick MacDonald
Seattle Times music critic

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Editor's note: Yes folks, it's almost holiday time again, and that means lots of big, fat books are coming out, vying for your gift-giving dollar. Every week from now through Nov. 30, we're printing lists of some of the best and biggest arts and entertainment books. Next week, look for books on classical music.

Charles Peterson's "Touch Me I'm Sick" joins other new music-oriented coffee-table books now groaning the tables at bookstores, just in time for Christmas-gift buying. Publishers have focused on the usual suspects this year.

"According to the Rolling Stones" by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood ($40; Chronicle Books) — Obviously inspired by the 2000 best-seller "The Beatles Anthology," this is the Stones' story as told by the current members, and it's surprisingly tame and totally self-serving. Anything unpleasant (drug busts, Altamont) is glossed over. Virtually every recording and tour is gone over thoroughly, until your eyes cross, but nothing new is revealed. There's not a word of juicy gossip, little insight and scarce humor. Why isn't the surviving ex-Stone, Mick Taylor, on board? Instead, there are too many essays by hangers-on that are mostly unreadable hagiography. Overall, a huge disappointment. But there are some nice pictures.

"Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip" with contributions from Blair Jackson, Dennis McNally, Stephen Peters, and Chuck Wills ($50; DK Publishing) — New Grateful Dead books come out every Christmas, because Deadheads will buy anything. Cynics may be sick of the endless merchandising of a band that died in 1995 along with Jerry Garcia, but, if so, they'd miss out on a good thing, because this 480-page tome is impressive. Every page is packed with information (including details of every Seattle show), there are lots of pictures never before published, and plenty of new information and insights. It's the kind of book you can open anywhere and find something interesting. Deadheads will have to make room (plenty of room) for this volume on their Grateful Dead bookshelf, because it's essential.

"The Beatles: A Private View" by Robert Freeman ($60; Big Tent Entertainment) — If you want to really impress a Beatles fan this Christmas, give them this big, beautiful book.

It's by the official photographer of the band in their early years, and while it includes many images with which fans have long been familiar, it also contains about 20 black-and-white and color photos that have never before been published. They're artful, funny and moving.

There's too much text (all that space could've been used for more pictures), but it includes some warm remembrances and anecdotes.

"Rock & Roll Year by Year" by Luke Crampton & Dafydd Rees ($50; DK Publishing) — A book like this — big, fat and imposing — comes out every year at this time, and this hefty, 600-page chronology has so much information, all in little bites, that it's a fun page-turner.

But it's written by a couple of London-based authors, so is very Brit-centric, with lots of items about bands, individuals, venues, labels and radio stations most American rock fans have probaby never heard of. There are color pictures on every page, and they are the most appealing thing about the book.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company